Dannen - Hit men: power brokers and fast money inside the music business

Praise for F REDRIC D ANNENS
HIT MEN

The most revealing look yet at the characters who run the rock-music business.

Entertainment Weekly

(selecting Hit Men as one of the ten best books of 1990)

No one, insider or outsider, has ever grasped the basic concept of power in the pop-music business better than Fredric Dannen in Hit Men. Hit Men has enough dramatic juice to drive half a dozen fictional best sellers.

Wayne Robins, Newsday

The no-holds-barred tale of showbizs most flamboyant branch strips away the impenetrable sheen of some of the industrys weightiest names.

Variety

Hit Men brings to life the most compelling gang of thugs since TheGodfather. The stories of this smarmy bunch are part delicious, part appalling.

USA Today

Anyone who has even a passing interest in the music industry will be intrigued by Hit Men. The two basic themes are mob involvement and music executives dalliance.

Chicago Tribune

A detailed profile of the handful of individuals who control the Top Forty Dannens triumph is his ability to reduce the complicated problems and issues of the music industry to precise, personal situations.

Rolling Stone

Dannens thorough, sure-footed investigation create[s] a lucid and understandable account of the modern music business.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Dannen mixes the skills of an investigative journalist with the gifts of an expert storyteller in an expose that will intrigue and appall readers with its disclosures.

Publishers Weekly

Well researched and chock-full of juicy tidbits, [Hit Men] imparts a vivid sense of the record industrys slimy side.

Business Week

Walter Yetnikoff, president of CBS Records, the most powerful man in the record business. In his twenty-five years with the company, he transformed himself from a shy corporate lawyer into a brilliant, crafty rock warlord.
MARK SOLOMON/LGI

Morris Levy, president of Roulette Records, was dubbed the Godfather of the American music business because of his ties to organized crime. If a guys a cocksucker in his life, Levy once philosophized, when he dies he dont become a saint.
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES

Dick Asher, one of the few top record executives to take a moral stance against shady industry practicesonly to be politically executed at CBS Records.
DAVID H. WELLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Clive Davis brought CBS Records into the rock mainstream. After being fired from CBS, he pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 1976. He reemerged as the head of Arista Records, scoring immediate success with singer Barry Manilowseen with Davis, aboveand, later on, Whitney Houston.
COURTESY OF ARISTA RECORDS

Though outwardly self-effacing, Warner Bros, chairman Mo Ostin was as capable of waging war as his bitter enemy, CBS Records Walter Yetnikoff. When Yetnikoff lured James Taylor from the Warner roster, Ostin retaliated by snatching Paul Simon from CBS.
COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. RECORDS

After managing acts such as Laura Nyro and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, David Geffen created Asylum Records and, later on, the label that bore his name. In the process, he made himself very powerfuland immensely unpopular. A music attorney once received a stack of congratulatory telegrams for choking him.
UPI/BETTMANN NEWSPHOTOS

Goddard Lieberson, the urbane and witty president of CBS Records in its pre-rock days, minted gold with the original cast album of My Fair Lady. Worshipped by his staff, he signed his letters God.
DAVID GAHR

Irving Azoff, MCA Records president, shown here with his wife, Shelli. Like David Geffen, Azoff was a former artist manager who enhanced his power by becoming a label boss. He was both feared and loathed. Nicknamed the Poison Dwarf, Azoff once sent a former friend a live boa constrictor as a birthday gift.
RON WOLFSON

Allen Grubman, the industrys top lawyer, represented Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Sting, George Michael, and other stars. Yet he was wary of offending CBS president Walter Yetnikoff. Once I yelled at Allen, Yetnikoff said, and he had to take three Valiums!
1988 ROBIN HOLLAND

Casablanca Records chief Neil Bogart, the king of disco, dead at thirty-nine. Motto: Whatever it takes. He created a fad and nearly destroyed a large multinational in the process.
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES

Frank Dileo, the former bookie and CBS promotion executive who became Michael Jacksons manager. Jackson believed Dileo had a lot to do with the success of his megabit, Thriller.
FEATURE FLASH/LGI

Tough and unsentimental, Larry Tisch replaced Thomas Wyman, shunted William Paley aside, and sold CBS Records to Sony for $2 billion.
AP/WIDE WORLD

In 1980, Thomas Wyman, left, became the fifth man to serve as president of CBS Inc. under its chairman-founder, William Paley, right. He wound up as yet another of Paleys disposable lighters.